Why Budgets Don't Work and How to Fix It

By Terry Rigg

This article is for those families that have sat down at a desk or the kitchen table time after time trying to develop a family budget that they can live with.

Why don't they work?

There are several answers to that question. Most budgets are doomed from day one because they are too complicated, don't have the commitment of all involved or the numbers simply don't add up. The biggest culprit is that most people don't allow for unexpected expenses.

Let's tackle these one at a time:

Too Complicated: When you list every expense you have on your budget you set yourself up for defeat. Some budgets include such things as cleaning supplies, dog food, haircuts and car gas. In order to keep track of all of these you would need a new box of envelopes every month.

Answer: Streamline your budget. By simply including a topic on your budget entitled "Household" where you can include everything you spend money on each month, excluding bills. Groceries will undoubtedly be the largest expense in this category. By taking the extra time to figure what needs to go into your household budget when you set it up, you can save a lot of time each payday.

Commitment:

1. Many times the commitment to live by a budget is lacking.

2. People get into spending habits that are hard to break.

3. There is constant friction in the family over money.

4. It is more comfortable to live beyond your means.

Answer: You have to consider all of the above problems when setting up your budget. The Family Budget is just that, the FAMILY BUDGET. Everyone in the family that is old enough to count should be included. I don't mean to say that children should have a say in where the money goes, but they should be aware of what the spending limits of the family are. If you work closely with your spouse in developing a family budget you both are more likely to stick to it. There is one other detail that will help. By setting aside money for yourself and your spouse, that you don't have to account to the other for, your budget is more likely to succeed.

The Numbers Don't Add Up:

You have more budget than you have paycheck. Generally, this is caused by not being realistic in your budget. You try to make your paycheck fit your budget.

Answer: Start by listing your household expenses and bills. Then include 10% of your income for long and short term savings. If this total is more than your paycheck, you have to cut back. Start by looking at your household budget. Are there items that you can do without? If you have money left over after considering all of the above, then increase your savings.

Unexpected Expenses: This can be from your car breaking down, need a new washer or any number of other expenses that you can't predict.

Answer: While long term savings is for things such as a home or car purchase or college for the kids, short term savings is just as vital to your financial security. A short term savings will accomplish two things. It will provide you with the money you need to pay those unexpected expenses and it will cut down on the use of credit cards. The short term savings could save you hundreds of dollars a year.

When you develop your budget, keep the following things in mind:

1. Make your budget a simple as possible

2. Get the family involved.

3. Make your budget fit your paycheck, not the other way around.

4. Plan for the unexpected.

5. Visit The Complete Budget and Bill Organizer for more details

By Steve Strauss

This is maybe my favorite study in the last year. An online survey of 972 adults, it identified the five habits that are most likely to limit one’s career advancement. I love this list because it’s not the stuff people are generally looking out for in their careers. It’s not the stuff experts have been warning people about since they got their first internship.

Here’s the list:

1.                Unreliability

2.                “It’s not my job”

3.                Procrastination

4.                Resistance to change

5.                Negative attitude

Don’t Let Your Website Drive Customers Away

By Jeff Haden

Some of my web pages have high bounce rates.  I have made a number of changes but nothing makes a difference.  Any ideas?  

Quick background:  Bounce rate is a metric that measures the number of visitors who leave your site after having looked at only one page or only staying for a few seconds.  Think of bounce rate as the, “Oops, not what I wanted — next!” metric.

The Best Day To Go On A Job Interview

By Michael Donovin

First of all, to fully understand and appreciate the answer, a couple of givens must be taken into account. What I believe to be the most important item for dealing with an interview successfully is, your attitude. Your attitude determines the outcome of every interview. The core competencies must be there in order for you to get the interview in the first place but, your attitude during the interview will be what ultimately gets you accepted or rejected for the position. If it was as simple as, "I can do the job", there would be no need for an interview in the first place - the employer would just hire based upon the resume.

Life Keeps Moving and So Should You

By Odette Worrel

Life is ever changing and keeping up with it is stressful. By the time we have figured out what our world looks like and what we can count on, something happens to change the dynamics of what we know. This applies to everything...cell phones, jobs, family. Nothing stays the same. Change is life's built in mechanism to force us to step outside our comfort zones. How will we respond? Will we respond? Who are we as we navigate our way through the change?

10 Ways to Crank Up Your Success Esteem in Under 10 Minutes

By Troyann Williams

Success is a journey not a destination. When you are building the successful life you desire it’s very "human" (i.e., "normal") to experience occasional moments of self doubt and feeling down. When you recognize one of these low moments you can crank your Success Esteem back up to a power level quickly and easily by implementing one or more of the ideas below.

1. Re energize Your Primary Goals: 

How To Build Good Character

By Greg S. Baker

Building good character is all about addition, not subtraction. What I mean is this: when it comes to change, our focus is usually on the aspects of our lives that are bad. We try to cut out or cut off these negative or bad qualities. We try to improve by subtraction. That is not how you build good character.

It is the process of addition in your life that brings the character. In so doing, you automatically take care of the other negative aspects. As both a father and a pastor of a Church, I look for ways to continually add to the character of those I am responsible for. The Bible teaches us this concept in 2 Peter 1:5-9. We are to add things like virtue, patience, love, kindness, faith, and so on. It is the process of adding these things to our lives that we gain the character to be fruitful in life.

Egypt's Future Rests with the Military

By: Alon Ben-Meir

By now it has become increasingly clear that the future of Egypt's stability, political reforms and progress rest almost entirely in the hands of its military. Unlike other militaries in Arab states, Egypt's military is one of the most respected institutions that have earned the admiration and respect of the people. It is, to some extent, similar to the Israeli military. Service in the Egyptian Armed Forces is compulsory, and thus composed of young soldiers from all walks of life with a unique affinity and commitment to the welfare and well-being of their nation.

Who Uses NLP?

Anyone who:

• Interacts with people in any way.
• Desires to improve their ability to connect with others.
• Is searching for ways and means to personal growth.
• Is tired of letting their past stop them from achieving what they desire.
• Wants to be at the top of their game.
• Knows there has to be more to life!

In our seminars, public speaking events, consulting and coaching activities, we have met people from a variety of backgrounds and interests who have benefited and continue to benefit from their knowledge and proficiency with NLP:

Using Emotions to Manipulate People

If you want to emotionally manipulate people then you need to think of yourself as an artist who skillfully performs his art that the viewers of the art are only able to see the end result and not understand the intricacies of his workings.

You already know that you are taking a risk by trying to manipulate others so; the key here is to fly under the radar and avoid getting caught. When you are learning how to manipulate others do it slowly starting with your friends and immediate family. This way of practicing can be compared to a martial artist practicing shadow boxing before he takes on real opponents.

Now, that you know how to start we will discuss what to do in order to successfully manipulate people. Specifically, we will see how to use the dominant emotions of people to get what we want. The dominant emotion varies from person to person. For instance, a person who is interested in stock markets, horse racing or Forex will succumb to tricks that target the greed factor. On the other hand a person interested in charity, philanthropy or church will be open to any suggestions that give him a 'feel good' effect.

Once you know the dominant emotion of the person then you can tailor your words and actions that appeal to the dominant emotion of the person.

At first, you will find it difficult to figure this out but as you observe their patterns of behavior you can 'crack the code' in a few days.

The interesting thing is once you start doing this, you will create a set of 'personality profiles' in your mind that the time taken to break the code will keep reducing every time until you reach a stage where you will be able to spot patterns in a person's behavior within a few minutes.

Finally, we will see what type of attitude is required to learn effective manipulation. What you are about to read is a bit heavy but after all manipulation is not a light subject so pay attention. You need to think of yourself as a scientist and the world is your laboratory and humans are like the rats in your laboratory. A scientist injects different compounds on a rat and observes its behavior and then records the results. Likewise you need to constantly learn how people respond to different stimulus and record the observations in your mind for latter use.

Source

How Changing Your Vocabulary With NLP Can Improve Your Life

I once dealt with a client who had frustrating issues in his personal life. He was having difficulty finding a girlfriend, his family had troubles back in his home country and relied on his ability to speak English to survive and his parents were in general very negative about him and his life choices. At 27 he still lived at his parent's house, but he was afraid of moving out both for how he would cope and how they would cope without him. He was regularly getting panic attacks and was constantly overwhelmed with anxiety.

How To Do A Self Anchor

Throughout our lives, we unconsciously anchor many things in our mind. Whether it is our mother's cooking and the aroma that fills the room or the sound of the ice cream truck, when we smell or hear things, we are often brought back into the memory of the smell or sound.

Knowing how the mind work, we can utilize anchoring to help us feel good and accomplish things that we may otherwise feel uncomfortable doing. The most simple case would be speaking in front of a large crowd. When utilizing anchoring in this case, we are able to bring ourselves back to the time where we were more confident or whatever resource it is we need, and arm with this memory, we can go further in our presentation.

How To Anchor Oneself

Keeping with the fear of speaking in front of a large crowd, we will go ahead and think, what is it we will need, what inner resources that we will need to be able to speak in front of a large crowd.

Once one finds that inner resource that is required, one may close their eyes and begin to allow the mind to wander off into a memory where they had this resource in the past. Keep building up memories, or even staying with the same one but making sure that one is fully associated within the memory.

Once the person feels they are at the peak of the memory, full embodied into the memory, they should anchor themselves by either putting together two fingers or touching somewhere on their body that they wouldn't often touch, like an ear lobe.

After anchoring the memory, one should try it out later and see if it works. If not, one should sit down and go over the process and perhaps finding a stronger memory or piling it with other resources.

Having this technique is useful in many situation and eventually, one would be very comfortable to do what it is they want to do without even anchoring.

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